First the commisssioner of the Metropolitan Police decided that his officers could wear the Union Jack in a tie pin to support British troops, then the Government announces that the new ID cards will not have the flag as it might upset the Irish.
What a crazy country we live in.
If the cards are voluntary I do not thing I will be purchasing one.
Let us hoped their new protocol includes flying the flag on Armed Forces Day
From this is Lincolnshire
While the City of Lincoln Council choose a mix of royal, military and religious occasions on which to fly a variety of flags, their county counterparts follow a list produced by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
So yesterday, unlike Armed Forces Day on June 27 when no special flag was flown, the council marked the birthday of the Queen’s sons wife – Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Debbie Cook, head of democratic services at the council, said: “Lincolnshire County Council has a flag flying protocol, in which it lists days that the Union Flag should be hoisted from County Offices.
“This is done in accordance with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
“And as it was the 17 July and that is the birthday of the Duchess of Cornwall, the Union Flag was flying from the building.”
Brian Furneaux, secretary of the Royal British Legion’s City of Lincoln branch, was surprised to learn the county council marked the birth of Prince Charles’s unpopular second wife but not the military who are such a major part of county life.
“Normally you would think that the city and the county would be together on this sort of thing,” he said.
“It would be interesting to find out why the county council doesn’t fly a flag for armed forces day.”
For more on flags, see Saturday’s Echo.
General Sir Edward Hanley wrote this short poem about the colours of the 43rd Regiment which he saw in a Church obviously a long time after their use.
It sums up nicely the symbolism flags employ.
A moth eaten rag on a worm eaten pole.
It does not look likely to stir a man’s soul,
‘Tis the deeds that were done ‘neath the moth-eaten rag.
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag’
A national debate on a Maori flag to fly at the Auckland Harbour Bridge - and Parliament - on Waitangi Day has begun with the old ensign giving a popular newcomer a run for its money.
A series of taxpayer-supported hui to discuss the flag began yesterday at Auckland’s Te Puea Marae.
Debate was sparked in January when Transit New Zealand refused to fly the tino rangatiratanga flag, designed in 1989, from Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Prime Minister John Key entered the row, saying if Maori could come up with an agreed flag it would not only fly from the bridge, but from Parliament.
Rangatiratanga is competing against the flag of the independent tribes, the existing New Zealand flag and the New Zealand red ensign.
Te Puea Marae did not fly any of them a kingitanga ensign was on its flagpole.
“If you ask the majority of Tainui they would probably say use the kingitanga flag for the national Maori flag,” kaumatua Eru Thompson said.
“A lot of Tainui grew up under that direction.”
He said it did not matter which national Maori flag was selected as Tainui would fly their own on the marae anyway. Nationally, he had a favourite.
“I would boldly say let’s follow the tino rangatiratanga flag that gives us some empowerment.”
The independent tribes flag, dating from 1834, had some support, with one of those at the hui, Paumea McKay saying that it was first.
“It should be used to recognise previous injustices. Once you learn the history of this country you will not make the mistakes of others.”
Matiu Tuhourangi, a tribal historian, said the New Zealand flag should be recognised as being a yacht squadron ensign, as it was originally used by the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. “We want to build bridges between peoples with the first flag. They used it in the Boer War.”
Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said it was important that Maori had a flag as a symbol of “your worth and your mana.”
While leading a debate, he preferred the tino rangatiratanga flag. “It’s different and it’s got a koru in it and it’s balanced, and it’s a nice looking flag and its already starting to feel like my flag.”
Maori Party MP Hone Harawira said the wider population wanted to get rid of the present flag.
“When you travel overseas, people think you are Australian.”
The Union Jack’s time had come, he said. “It’s part of our history but the same part of that history is our Pacific relationships. The Union Jack is not deserving of being the dominant part of the flag any more.”
FLYING THE OPTIONS
* Flag of the independent tribes: Designed by missionary Henry Williams in 1834 and adopted by 25 chiefs of the Far North. It served as the official flag of New Zealand until the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 when it was replaced with the Union Jack.
* The New Zealand flag: The symbol of the realm, government and people.
* The New Zealand red ensign: Gifted to Maori by Queen Victoria and favoured by Maori as red is a symbol of mana. The 1981 Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act permits Maori to use this flag on occasions of significance to Maori.
* Tino rangatiratanga: The winner of a national competition in 1989 and unveiled at Waitangi Day in 1990. Its dominant koru represents the unfolding of new life, rebirth, continuity, renewal and hope. It is a symbol of Maori sovereignty.
EXCLUSIVE By Anna Edwards
A dad has been branded a racist – simply for hoisting a Union Jack flag from his shed.
After displaying his patriotism Steve Coe – whose wife is black – received an anonymous letter through the letterbox of his home in Tideswell Road, Shirley.
It accused him of being in the BNP and National Front.
The angry letter appears to have been sent by a neighbour, who writes: “If you want to look at the flag put it inside your own home, don’t subject it to others, many find it intrusive and your motives questionable.”
Mr Coe, 46, is an avid collector of British memorabilia and says the flag, which has been flying for the last two weeks, is merely showing his love of all things British.
He said: “I’ve got this letter asking me what my motives are for putting up this flag, and am I a member of the BNP or National Front?
“I’m just a patriotic chap, this letter is awful, really nasty.
“People shouldn’t feel worried about being proud of their country, this is a symbol of our country, how is it racist to have a British flag on your shed?”
Mr Coe has been reassured by Croydon Council that there is nothing wrong with him putting up his flag.
And he says he is willing to meet with whoever has sent him the letter, to show them he isn’t the slightest bit racist.
He added: “It’s very petty, they’ve obviously got nothing better to do.
“Why weren’t they mature about it and come and speak to me? It’s cowardly to do it like this.
“I’ve shown the letter to my neighbours and friends, they are all disgusted.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to, regardless of their creed or colour, has got behind me and condemned it, it’s totally unacceptable.”
His wife, Jocie, finds the letter’s suggestion that there are sinister motives behind the flag particularly laughable – as her family hails from the West Indies.
Mrs Coe, said: “We’re not interfering with anyone else, I don’t know why someone should be so offended.
“I think you have to let people live, writing stuff like this is a bit poisonous.
“My family come from the West Indies, so the idea my husband is a BNP member is ridiculous.
“Maybe they think I’m a servant because they’ve seen me hanging the washing out!”
From the Times Online, where you will find the whole article
Labour made the mistake in the Nineties of allowing the SNP to “monopolise” the saltire, the Scottish Secretary admittd yesterday.
“We allowed our national symbol - the St Andrew’s Cross - to be co-opted as an image of nationalism,” Jim Murphy said.
In doing so, Labour repeated its mistake of the 1980s when it had allowed Margaret Thatcher to “claim the mantle of patriotism” and wrap herself in the Union flag, he added.
Mr Murphy’s comments came as a poll found that fewer than a third of voters in Scotland want independence.
Twenty eight per cent of those questioned by ICM for BBC Scotland said they wanted to break away from the rest of the UK, compared to 47 per cent who want to remain within the Union but with Holyrood being given enhanced powers, and 22 per cent who want to stay within the UK but with Westminster retaining control of tax and spending.
In his speech yesterday, Mr Murphy sought to reclaim the saltire and to argue there was no contradiction between Scottish and British identities. It has has long been a view held in private by many in Labour circles.
But a leading politics expert dismissed the comments as “irrelevant to contemporary Scotland”.
Professor James Mitchell, of Strathclyde University, said: “Scottish politics has moved well beyond flags. What Labour needs to do is decide what it believes in, not which flag it should be waving.”
He attacked the claim that Labour had abandoned the saltire, saying that it was much used by the party during the 1997 devolution referendum campaign.
Since becoming Scottish Secretary, Mr Murphy has been keen to shed Labour’s image as a London-dominated party - the reason blamed by some for the loss of the Holyrood election in 2007.
His speech on Britishness, a favourite theme of Gordon Brown, is part of Labour’s fightback as it continues to trail the SNP in the polls.
Steve Harrison has written in to say that he bought one of our Armed Forces day flags for his event as detailed below:
I’ve bought this flag for our fund raising evening for Help4heroes which we are holding on the 13 June at Hamsterley WMC.
We hope to raise as much money as possible which we are donating to RAF Leeming who will forward it to H4H.
Steve Harrison
From Southport news It seems the Police up there support the gay community but not the English one. How about gay people who are also patriotic English i wonder.
Their excuse is also frankly pathetic. £300 for a flag? You can buy a 2 yard one here for £37.99, woven polyester just like on the Royal navy’s ships.
Maybe I will write to the Chief Constable.
RAISING the rainbow flag to show support for the International Day Against Homophobia has also raised questions about police policy.
Several members of the public have been reportedly calling into Southport police station, complaining that the rainbow flag is flying, but there was no sign of the cross on St George’s Day.
They say that while they welcome the gay pride message, the decision to fly one flag and not the other smacks of double standards.
When questioned about the policy on a Merseyside Police forum, Chief Constable Bernard Hogan Howe said: “We’ve decided to buy a St George’s flag to fly at HQ in 2010. We already fly the British flag every day across the force.
“At about £300 per flag we think that for one day this is a prudent decision.”
But less than a month later rainbow flags are flying above every police station across the borough.
It flies as part of Merseyside Police’s commitment to tackling hate crime and this is a visible show of support for the day.
It is understood that the rainbow flags are also used throughout the year at recruitment fairs and to support events such as Liverpool’s annual gay cultural festival, Homotopia.
The flags appears to be much more popular as a fashion item than as a flag these days.
An interesting article from the Times which suggests the flag is actually more popular with foreigners than with the UK public (despite Gordon brown’s efforts).
Here is the article:
The Union Jack: 400 years and no sign of flagging
Not even the BNP or Britain’s Got Talent have dented the Union Jack’s fashion moment
These days, in disengaged, identitycrisised-out Britain, you’re never more than 10ft away from the national flag. Grown women stalked the Topshop website for months in anticipation of the arrival of its Union Jack jacket. Lucinda Chambers’s wall-hanging for the Rug Company is almost as ubiquitous a feature of fashionable interiors as cigarettes are in French Vogue. And, in a truly horrifying twist on this happy picture of a nation’s pride restored, the flag winked at us in the reflection from Simon Cowell’s dazzling white veneers as it bounced off the set of Britain’s Got Talent in a sort of postmodern take on the Mona Lisa. None of which can be what James I had in mind when he originally championed the splicing of the Scottish and English flags . . . which raises another scary prospect. What will happen to England’s balance of payments if Scotland finally devolves? Because, man, that flag is selling like hot cakes.
The designer Kinder Aggugini knows this — which is why, no matter where in the world he is doing business, when potential buyers visit his hotel suite to inspect his clothes, he drapes one of his huge Union Jacks over a sofa or chaise longue — and he’s Italian.
“Foreigners love the flag,” he reports. “For them it has no negative connotations the way it has for some Brits. They don’t look at it and think of colonialism and Millwall football fans. They think of Kate Moss and The Who. Italians of my generation grew up loving the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, but at some point the Stars and Stripes became politically tainted.”
In part, Aggugini says, the Union Jack owes its success to its design: “Most flags are not very interesting but the Union Jack is brilliantly conceived. So many flags are horizontal stripes but the Union Jack comes in about 13 sections.” The military ones (as opposed to nylon ones from souvenir stands) in particular, which he has collected since he worked for Paul Smith years ago, are “so well made that you can’t even bleach them — I’ve tried”.
So cosily fashionable has the flag become that you won’t be able to move through the Debenhams homeware collection without bumping into red, white and blue china and cushions — which would be excellent news for whoever designed the flag, if anyone could remember who that was. Some historians think that the name Union Jack came from James I himself, and a cross reader who once wrote to me on this topic argued that no one should call it the Union Jack unless it is being flown at sea — on all other occasions it should be referred to as the Union Flag. Others counter that this is rubbish because in 1902 an Admiralty circular announced that both names could be used officially. So there.
Arguably the current glut of Union Jacks owes more to superficial trend-following than it does to love of queen and country, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Perhaps the British have to debunk something before they feel safe embracing it. Not so long ago, the only arms it dangled from belonged to shouty members of the National Front. And now it’s in Debenhams. See what happens when image consultants get involved? For it is another scientific fact that when consultants gather to discuss rebranding an institution, sooner or later someone will have to say, whoops. So it proved in 1997, when, at a cost of jillions, consultants advised BA to dump the Union Jack from its tail fins because it was “stuffy and institutional” (consultant-speak for associated with skinheads) and paint over it with pictures of whales skateboarding or getting jiggy . . . mere moments before Patsy Kensit and Liam got jiggy under a Union Jack duvet on the cover of Vanity Fair.
This was hardly the first time that the flag had been reinvented. The 1606 version had a makeover in 1800 when the Irish flag was incorporated (Wales, a mere principality, never got a look-in — which you’d have to say is a good thing design-wise because that dragon clashes with everything).
Then, in the 1960s, “the Union Jack became a symbol of youth culture in a semi-ironic nod to Empire,” says Oriole Cullen, curator of fashion and textiles at the V&A. “It was part of a craze for military jackets and shops such as Lord Kitchener’s Valet and Granny Takes a Trip — it was the first time since the Second World War that the flag had been shown irreverently but affectionately. Cutting up the flag into clothes had a mild shock value then — and the brilliance of the design undoubtedly played its part. With other flags you quickly lose the sense of there being a pattern but you can turn the Union Jack into anything and it remains recognisable. The other huge appeal is that there’s no copyright.”
Britain is not unique in its flag fervour (see flagpoles across the US) but it may be the only country that embraces its flag while insisting that the country itself has gone to the dogs. Yet that flag is reflective of our nation, managing to embrace the trashy (Ginger Spice in her Union Jack bandage dress — perhaps making it kitsch renders it more acceptable to us), the anarchic (the Sex Pistols) and the really quite lovely (Paul Smith’s velvet dresses).
“I never really thought about any of its connotations,” says Lucinda Chambers, the fashion director of British Vogue, which has done its share of rescuing the flag from the clutches of touristy dreck and using it to make some point about Britishness. “I just loved it, even when I was a child. The colours are so strong and the old ones are in such beautiful linens. For me it has always been about a kind of nostalgia. Really, everyone needs to give it a rest — but I can’t talk because I’ve just done another shoot with Kate Moss draped in a Union Jack for our British issue. I keep thinking that I never want to see one again but I keep pulling them out. They must represent something lasting, I suppose.”
Now here is a strange little story From the Daily Star.
It seems the party is selling the Royal Standard and the Queen is somewhat narked by this.
It seems she does not want anyone to sell it, why? It isn’t trademarked as far as I know.
Since the people of the country pay her wages I see no problem in people selling the flag either. (we dont sell it by the way).
Story:
THE Queen was last night said to be furious with the BNP after it emerged the far-right group was funding its election campaign by selling Royal memorabilia.
“The Lord Chamberlain’s Office would write to any organisation that is selling Royal Standards, and ask them not to do it.”
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